First Baptist Church, Luverne, Alabama - A Study in What's Wrong with American Christianity

The Washington Post has a very lengthy piece that tries to reconcile claims of Christian godliness and evangelical Christian support for Donald Trump and, I would argue by extension the GOP's reverse Robin Hood agenda.  The problem, in my view, is the two cannot be reconciled.  Not if one truly believes in the New Testament message.  Trump is the embodiment of the seven deadly sins and should represent everything true Christians reject and condemn.  Instead, throughout the articles making excuses for their own failure to put Christ's message first and instead embracing the foul and toxic individual occupy the White House. Perhaps the most favored excuse: that God put Trump in the White House.  Sorry, but no, God had nothing to do with it.  Look instead at Vladimir Putin, Russian interference, Trump and the GOP's incessant lies, and most importantly those who put their racial fears and bigotry first.   While perhaps not intended to be such, the piece is, in my view, an indictment of conservative Christianity in America.  People like these parishioners are why I rarely call myself a Christian anymore.  If they are what it means to be Christian, I want nothing to do with it.   Here are some highlights where even the pastor fails the test of putting Christ's larger message and the truth first.  It's a study in cowardice and moral bankruptcy:

He prayed about what he was going to do. He was the pastor of First Baptist Church in the town of Luverne, Ala., which meant he was the moral leader of a congregation that overwhelmingly supported a president who was an alleged adulterer. For the past six weeks, Crum had been preaching a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments, and now it was time for number seven.

It was summer, and all over the Bible Belt, support for President Trump was rising among voters who had traditionally proclaimed the importance of Christian character in leaders and warned of the slippery slope of moral compromise. In Crenshaw County, where Luverne is located, Trump had won 72 percent of the vote. Recent national polls showed the president’s approval among white evangelical Christians at a high of 77 percent. One survey indicated that his support among Southern Baptists was even higher, surpassing 80 percent . . .  

They settled into the seafoam-green cushions along the wooden pews, some of which also had back cushions to make them more comfortable. They opened old Bibles bookmarked with birthday cards and photos of grandchildren, and after they all sang “I was sinking deep into sin, far from the peaceful shore,” Crum walked up to the podium to deliver the sermon God had told him to deliver.

“What is adultery?” Crum began.

Jewell Killough was listening.

“Adultery, simply stated, is a breach of commitment,” Crum said. “When one person turns their back on a commitment that they made and seeks out something else to fulfill themselves.”

He talked about the dangers of temporary satisfaction, of looking at “anything unclean,” and in the choir behind him, Jack Jones nodded. He talked about other kinds of adultery, such as “hardheartedness” and avoiding personal responsibility.

“See, we don’t want to look at ourselves,” Crum said. “We don’t want to say, ‘I’m part of the problem.’”

Someone in the congregation coughed. Someone unwrapped a caramel candy.

“The purpose of the commandment is so we can see the sin, so we can repent of the sin and then fully experience the complete grace of god,” he said. “But only when we admit it. Only when we repent of it. And only when we return to him by faith.”

He was at the end of his sermon. If he was going to say anything about Trump, or presidents, or politicians, or how having a Christian character was important for the leader of the United States, now was the time. His Bible was open. He was preaching without notes.

He looked out at all the faces of people who felt threatened and despised in a changing America, who thought Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were sent by Satan to destroy them, and that Donald Trump was sent by God to protect them, and who could always count on Clay Crum to remind them of what they all believed to be the true meaning of Jesus Christ — that he died to forgive all of their sins, to save them from death and secure their salvation in a place that was 15,000 miles wide, full of gardens, appliances, and a floor of stars.

Not now, he decided. Not yet. He closed his Bible. He had one last thing to say to them before the sermon was over.  “Let us pray.”

The pastor said one thing that was true: he and his congregation do not want to look at themselves and admit that they are the problem.  Sadly, the same phenomenon is replicated thousands of times in "conservative" churches across America - some right here in Hampton, Virginia.  Religion is again proving that it is a great evil. 

The GOP Base: The Least Educated U.S. Religious Groups

I often blame the Republican Party's growing celebration of ignorance and denial of objective and scientific fact on the element of the party base that I describe as the Christofascists - namely evangelical Christians and fundamentalist Christians.  There are reasons for this groups avoidance of or discounting of facts: (i) facts and scientific knowledge threaten their legend and myth based religious beliefs, and (ii) they are among the least educated elements of American society.  Thus, as the Christofascists have risen in the Republican Party, the party has transformed from a stereo-typically party of affluence and education to one that is the exact opposite.  Indeed, one would now believe that a competition exists within the GOP to see who can be the most ignorant and most strongly reject facts and knowledge.  But, back to the Christofascists.  A study by Pew Research Center of the levels of education among religious groups in America has confirmed what I have long thought: the elements of the evangelical/fundamentalist Christian that make up the GOP's base are  the least educated (and I would argue the most ignorant) elements in America.  It's little wonder why Trump and his sixth grade level odf speaking appealed to them.  Here are findings from Pew:  

Attainment of a four-year college degree in the United States, often regarded as a key asset for economic success, varies by race and gender. But the share of people completing a college education also differs by religion, with members of some faith groups much more educated, on average, than others.

By far, Hindus and Unitarian Universalists have among the largest share of those with a college degree – 77% and 67% respectively. Roughly six-in-ten Jews (59%) have college degrees, as do similar shares in both the Anglican church (59%) and the Episcopal Church (56%).

These groups are among the top of a list of 30 U.S. religious groups ranked by educational attainment . . . . 

Other religious groups also have a higher percentage of college graduates than the full sample of more than 35,000 U.S. adults surveyed in the 2014 Religious Landscape Study, among whom 27% completed university. They include Buddhists and members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) – both at 47% – as well as Orthodox Christians (40%), Muslims (39%) and Mormons (33%).

Since Catholics make up one-in-five adults, it is not surprising that their share of members with a college degree (26%) roughly mirrors that of the general public.

What the article does not directly highlight is the fact that Southern Baptists and other evangelical Christians are in the basement when it comes to educational attainment.  To me this makes me ask the following: why as a country do we continue to give undeserved deference to the beliefs of the least educated and least informed segment of the population?  It makes absolutely no sense.  When will the mainstream media wake up to this reality?

Why We Need A Third Reconstruction in America

I am not sure what the symbolism might be, but I woke up during the night after having a dream where I and other family members were resistance fighters in Vichy France. The dream was disturbing and frustrating too since many in the dream were unconvinced of the evil being opposed. With waking and the coming of morning, a lesser but no less dangerous evil exists that must be opposed: the racism and right wing religious fanaticism that throughout America's history has typically walked hand in hand with racism and white supremacy.  If post election exit polls and other surveys are to be believed, a last gasp of angry white voters upset about the loss of white privilege Christian reactionaries who continue to seek to force their beliefs on all citizens propelled Donald Trump to electoral victory (along perhaps with electronic vote hacking in three swing states).  The take away from this circumstance is that the vast majority of registered voters - nearly 75% - who did not vote for Trump must oppose his agenda and push for what one writer at BillMoyers.com has called a third Reconstruction in America.  Here are article highlights:

The reactionary wave that swept across America with the election of Donald Trump is not an anomaly in our history. It is an all-too-familiar pattern in the long struggle for American reconstruction.

The story of our struggle for freedom is not linear: Every advance toward a more perfect union has been met with a backlash of resistance.

When African-Americans became full citizens of the United States during Reconstruction, a violent backlash arose in the Redemption movement that included both the violence of the Klan and the voter suppression of Southern Democrats. The same kind of backlash followed the legislative victories of the civil rights movement — what many historians call a “Second Reconstruction.” Richard Nixon’s “law and order” campaign of 1968 was an intentional effort to appeal to racial hate and fear without using overtly racist language. His adviser, Kevin Phillips, called it the “Southern Strategy.”

Donald Trump’s unanticipated victory could not have been possible without the election of Barack Obama as America’s first African-American president. Trump entered national politics by waging a crusade against the possibility of Obama’s citizenship. It proved to be the perfect way to touch the psychic wound of so many Americans who have not faced our legacy of racism. Anyone familiar with the Mississippi Plan of 1876 or the Southern Strategy of 1968 can be surprised only by the ease with which Trump adapted them for the 21^st century.

Trump’s attacks on immigrants, Muslims and the LGBTQ community were political ploys based on the fundamental racial fear at the heart of the American experience. When he told white Americans that he was their last chance to make America great again, he was touching a wound passed down since the lost cause religion of the 19^th century.

If we are willing to see ourselves as we are and have been, we will also see our potential for prophetic resistance, even in times like these. For we are also the heirs of great dissenters who’ve stood for right even when they were a minority of one. When the Jim Crow laws of the solid South were upheld by the US Supreme Court in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, only one justice — John Harlan of Kentucky — dissented. But his dissenting opinion laid the legal groundwork upon which Thurgood Marshall built his case over half a century later in Brown v. Board of Education.

When Woodrow Wilson showed Birth of a Nation at the White House a century ago, W.E.B. DuBois, Ida B. Wells and the interracial NAACP challenged the most powerful man in America to face his racism. 

Less than a majority of Americans elected a mortal, not a god, when they cast their ballots for Donald Trump. . . . Across lines of division, we can continue to build the moral coalition that is already a majority in this country. We can and must face the race and class question together and not as separate issues.

Yes, we have some difficult days ahead. . . . Our work continues: we must work together for a Third Reconstruction in America.

Many Republican "friends" vehemently deny the racism that motivated their votes.  Not coincidentally, many of them still cling to a near fundamentalist form of Christianity that, if one looks at America's history, has always been in lock step with white supremacy.  Lest we forget, the Southern Baptists came into being over the issue of slavery and religious arguments that blacks were inferior and not equal to whites.  Why do we pretend that much of this toxicity no longer exists throughout that denomination and so many of the other Christian fundamentalist sects?   #NotMyPresident

Yet Another “Christian” Mega Church Pastor Calls On Gays To Be “Put To Death”

Pastor Robby Gallaty - How long until his caught sucking cock or molesting a child?

While ISIS is executing those accused of being gay, American imams  "Christian" pastors are calling for gays to be put to death.   The identity of mindset between the brutal leaders of ISIS and this "men of gad" is chilling and one can only wonder when some cretins in the pews will decide to act on the hate spewing from far too many pulpits across America.  The ultimate evil is, of course, neither Islam or Christianity, but religion itself which has been a force of division and hatred and violence throughout the centuries.  Why anyone gives deference or a shred of respect to hate mongers in the pulpit is mind boggling.  Here are highlights from Addicting Info.org:

Another day, another “persecuted Christian.” As everyone knows, gay-hating Christians seem to cherry pick what it is they want to believe in the bible, and unfortunately it always comes back around to just simply hating someone for being who they were born to be. This is again evident in Tennessee in which a pastor in a Baptist mega church proclaimed that homosexuals “must be put to death”  because it’s what God would want and it is what he commands us to do.

The pastor, Robby Gallaty, told the church-goers that discrimination against gays should never stop, and that death is the only way to punish those who are “infected” with sin:

“God said that the sins of the people had infected the very land in which they live. So what happens to people who engage in this activity, this sexual immoral activity? Go to Leviticus 20, God gives us the punishment for engaging in these sins… ‘If a man sleeps with a man as with a woman, they have both committed a detestable thing. They must be put to death. And their blood is on their own hands.”

And why should innocent gays and lesbians be put to death? Well, according to Gallaty, they have made the choice to be gay, thus rebelling against God’s plan. Touching on the comparisons some Christians make in to racist beliefs and homophobic beliefs, Gallaty responded just as you’d think; insulting those who can see a legitimate comparison between two hatreds

[A]nother mega church moocher who will peddle anything to keep banking off stupid people. All while being a tax exempted organization.

As he preaches the genocide of gays, I wonder if he will touch on the fact that he sinning as he wears a pair of denim jeans and a cotton shirt. He probably won’t though because that doesn’t count in his tiny world of knowledge.

 Conservative Christians are NOT nice or decent people and the rest of society needs to recognize this reality and treat this "godly Christians" as utter social pariahs and outcasts.

Yet Another Study Confirms that the Bible Belt is the Porn Belt

One of the goals of this blog is to expose hypocrisy and the Christofascists and other self-anointed "godly folk" never disappoint in providing a treasure trove of hypocrisy that needs exposing.  Now, yet another study has found that the so-called Bible Belt is also the "Porn Belt" of America, meaning that the Bible Belt has the highest per capita number of porn searches in the country.  Deliciously, internet porn searching correlates wonderfully well with where Southern Baptists represent the highest percentage of local church bodies.  A piece in Patheos looks at the phenomenon- which ultimately causes wrongheaded public polices -  that needs to thrown in the faces of ranting Baptist pastors whenever they launch into homophobic rants.  Here are article excepts:

According to a new study, the more you say you literally believe in the Bible, the more you watch porn. At least that’s the inevitable fact-based conclusion drawn from the biggest study of internet Google porn searches by region.

In October, two Toronto researchers, Cara MacInnis and Gordon Hodson, published a study in which they used Google Trends to analyze porn searches. Individual search records are protected by privacy laws, but it is possible to compare the popularity of search terms across various regions or states, which is what they did.

Specifically, MacInnis and Hodson linked state level information from Gallup polls asking about religious and political attitudes together with a variety of sex and porn-related search terms… their findings are in keeping with information from other sources: Business professor Benjamin Edelman at Harvard found that states with more traditional views of sex and gender have higher rates of paid porn subscriptions—meaning people who are willing to put porn on a credit card…

Smut in Jesusland: “The honest truth is that we all have our failings, Christian or not, liberal or conservative. None of us live up to our best intentions or deepest values. What’s shameful is not the fact that people find sex arousing and seek it out, even when they feel compelled to do so on the sneak. The problem is hypocrisy and the way that it distorts public policies and parenting, causing real harm to real people. For over a decade, conservatives forced abstinence-only education on young people, insisting that hormone-ravaged teens could ‘just say no’ when they themselves can’t.”

This epic public health fail contributed to the United States having the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the developed world, with devastating economic consequences for young mothers and their offspring. Some thrive despite the odds; many do not. We can do better.

Denying young people information about their bodies doesn’t stop them from having sex. We know that. What it does is create a fog zone, a “haze of misperceptions, magical thinking and ambivalence” that puts teens at risk for sexually transmitted infections and surprise pregnancy. Teens are notorious risk takers. The army sends recruiters into high schools because at age 17 or 18 kids think bad things happen only to other people. Or they simply don’t think. Cognitive scientists tell us that the frontal lobe doesn’t develop fully until the early 20s.

Add to that a conservative, paternalistic “virginity code” that traces back to ancient times, layering shame, denial and secrecy around sexual exploration. Religious and cultural codes prizing virginity may once have helped to ensure that children were born only when parents could provide for them. But in today’s world, an antiquated purity myth can actually have the opposite effect…

Gay Rights Push Shifts Focus to the South

One of the most anti-gay parts of the country is the South where racism, Bible thumping and dislike of anyone "different" tends to be the norm, especially in regions like Southwest Virginia where it's as if a frightening time warp exists and it's still the early 1950's.  Things are even worse in Alabama, Mississippi and parts of other southern states.  Hence, it is no surprise that belatedly Gay Inc. is finally shifting its attention to area where anti-gay animus tends to be the norm, all too often fanned by fundamentalists and Southern Baptists.  The New York Times looks at this shift in focus which for many LGBT individuals cannot come soon enough.  Here are excerpts:

The country’s leading gay rights groups and donors, after a decade focused on legalizing same-sex marriage, are embarking on a major drive to win more basic civil rights and workplace protections in Southern and Western states where the rapid progress of the movement has largely eluded millions of gay men and lesbians.

The effort will shift tens of millions of dollars in the next few years to what advocates described as the final frontier for gay rights: states like Mississippi, Georgia, Arkansas and Texas, where Republicans dominate elected office and traditional cultural views on homosexuality still prevail.

The new strategy reflects the growing worry within the movement that recent legal and political successes have formed two quickly diverging worlds for lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender Americans: one centered on the coasts and major cities, and another stretching across the South and up through the Rocky Mountains, in states where gays enjoy virtually no legal protections against discrimination.

“We can’t allow two distinct gay Americas to exist,” said Tim Gill, a Colorado philanthropist whose foundation is putting about $25 million into a handful of mostly conservative-leaning states over the next five years. “Everybody should have the same rights and protections regardless of where they were born and where they live.”

The push is likely to encounter resistance. Gay rights groups will be engaging in communities where churches and other religious institutions are tightly woven into daily life, and where efforts to expand civil rights protections to gays are sometimes viewed as an attack on people of faith.

One early test of the new effort will come in Houston next month, when the mayor, Annise D. Parker, will seek to pass an ordinance forbidding businesses and city agencies to discriminate against residents based on sexual identity, race or gender.

In some states, organizations like the Human Rights Campaign, the American Civil Liberties Union and groups Mr. Gill helps fund plan to lobby for nondiscrimination ordinances in housing and employment and for legislation allowing gay parents to adopt. In other states, they are building new grass-roots organizations and pushing for the election of openly gay and lesbian officials where there.

In a nod to the dominant political culture in the South and West, the effort will rely heavily on outreach to Republicans and clergy, as well as to African-American civil rights organizations. Gay rights leaders are also quietly forging partnerships with major corporations based in Southern and Western cities, hoping to leverage their ties to Republican officials. 

“The prevalence of the closet presents a challenge far greater than what we’ve seen in the other regions of the country,” said Chad H. Griffin, president of the Human Rights Campaign, which is opening up field offices in Mississippi, Alabama and Arkansas in an effort to build stronger ties to schools, religious institutions and political cultural leaders. “You risk being kicked out of your home. You risk discrimination on the job or being fired. You risk rejection at your place of religious celebration.”

Gay rights leaders are also worried that future court victories could leave gay men and lesbians in some states mired in a legal paradox: They might be free to marry but could still lose their jobs in the 29 states where it remains legal to fire employees for their sexual orientation.

Yes, as always seems to be the case, religion and professional Christians milking the ignorant for money via gay bashing will be the primary obstacles.  Ironically, some of the Christofascists have recently described gays as "leeches," yet if there is any parasite it's the folks like Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher, Brian Brown and Victoria Cobb who suck money from those who are often least able to pay.

 

One Man One Woman - The Right's Myth of Biblical Marriage

This blog has looked at the Bible's description of marriage before and concluded that if one is honest - a very big if for Christianists who seem to have forgotten one of the Ten Commandments - the true Biblical model for marriage is actually polygamy, not the one man and one woman model that Maggie Gallagher and other theocratic bloviate about.  The chart above (click the image to enlarge it) shows other Biblical models for marriage.  In short, it's time to call out the anti-gay Christianists for what they are: LIARS.   Of course, getting the truth out to those who live in the bubble like world of the Southern Baptist Convention and conservative elements in the Roman Catholic Church will not be easy.  They like to cite the Bible but sadly ignore most of what is says.

In "Red States" Mourning and Delusion Continue

P. S. I forgot to mention that, as noted in a prior post, Tennessee ranks among the ten states with the least educated population.  Maybe that explains Ms. Cox's shock over the election results.

It will be interesting to see whether or not the 2012 election results will finally burst the bubble in which so many Republicans live - especially in deep "red states" where Republicans and conservatives just cannot grasp that the country and the world are changing and the 1950's are truly gone forever.   One would think with all the various media outlets available these folks could turn the dial from Fox News at least once in a while.  But, I guess that would involve thinking and trying to educate one's self - thinks that the GOP and the Christofascists seek to avoid at all cost.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at the election aftermath in the la la land that has come to be the GOP's alternate reality.  Here are highlights:

HENDERSONVILLE, Tenn. — She arrived early to take apart the campaign office piece by piece, just as she felt so many other things about her life were being dismantled. Beth Cox wore a Mitt Romney T-shirt, a cross around her neck and fresh eyeliner, even though she had been crying on and off and knew her makeup was likely to run. A day after the election, she tuned the radio to Glenn Beck and began pulling posters and American flags off the wall.

Here in the heart of Red America, Cox and many others spent last week grieving not only for themselves and their candidate but also for a country they now believe has gone wildly off track. The days after Barack Obama’s reelection gave birth to a saying in Central Tennessee: Once was a slip, but twice is a sign. 

If, as Obama likes to say, the country has decided to “move forward,” it has also decided to move further away from the values and beliefs of a state where Romney won 60 percent of the vote, a county where he won 70 percent, and a town where he won nearly 80. 

[I]n a single election night, parts of her [Cox's] country had legalized marijuana, approved gay marriage and resoundingly reelected a president who she worried would “accelerate our decline.”  .  .  .   .   “I just don’t get it,” the county sheriff said.

Romney’s thorough defeat had come more as a shock than as a disappointment, and now Cox stared at the actual results on her computer and tried to imagine what the majority of her country believed. “Virginia went blue? Really?” she said. “Southern-values Virginia?”

She blamed some of the divisiveness on Republicans. The party had gotten “way too white,” she said, and she hoped it would never again run a presidential ticket without including a woman or a minority. The tea party was an extremist movement that needed to be “neutralized,” she said, and Romney’s campaign had suffered irreparable damage when high-profile Republicans spoke about “crazy immigration talk and legitimate rape.”

But many other aspects of the division seemed fundamental and harder to solve.  .   .   .   . 

There was the America of gay marriage and the America of her Southern Baptist church, where 7,000 came to listen on Sundays, and where church literature described marriage as “the uniting of one man and one woman.”

Later that night, she left her two-story house in the suburbs and headed to a church a mile outside of town. It was her place of comfort — the place where she always found an answer. She drove onto the church’s sprawling campus, past the children’s center, the volleyball courts and techno-lit recreation room for teenagers and parked in front of a small building. Then she walked up to the second floor to lead her weekly prayer group of 25 women. 

Not to sound cruel, but perhaps Ms. Cox needs to spend less time at her Church - a Southern Baptist Church, of course -  open her eyes, maybe even travel to large Northeast cities, and stop drinking the GO/Southern Baptist Kool-Aid.  Indeed, start thinking for herself and embracing knowledge rather than the intellectual gruel that are the staple of the Christianists and the GOP which they have now overrun.  As citizens, we have a duty to educate ourselves and not live in a bubble.  Yes, it is scary stuff for folks like Ms. Cox - especially the thinking part - but it needs to be done.  And maybe in the process Ms. Cox would come to grasp that all of us are fully human whether we are black or white, gay or straight, Christian or non-Christian.     

Jimmy Carter: "Jesus Never Said a Word About Homosexuality"

Jimmy Carter may not have been the greatest of presidents, but certainly has shown himself to be a true Christian in the positive sense in contrast to Christianists who are better known for the hate and intolerance that are their primary hallmarks. In a new book, NIV Lessons from Life Bible: Personal Reflections with Jimmy Carter, Jimmy Carter makes some statements that will cause Christianists to convulse and spray spittle. More specifically, Carter notes that Christ never said a word about homosexuality -something that was well known and prevalent in the Roman dominated world of Christ's time. Huffington Post has a piece in which Carter is interviewed about the new book and topics that include among other things the treatment of women and gays, and Bible literalism. Here are some highlights:

What do you say to those who point to certain scriptures that women should not teach men or speak in church? (1 Corinthians 1:14):

I separated from the Southern Baptists when they adopted the discriminatory attitude towards women, because I believe what Paul taught in Galatians that there is no distinction in God’s eyes between men and women, slaves and masters, Jews and non-Jews -– everybody is created equally in the eyes of God.

There are some things that were said back in those days –- Paul also said that women should not be adorned, fix up their hair, put on cosmetics, and that every woman who goes in a place of worship should have her head covered. Paul also said that men should not cut their beards and advocated against people getting married, except if they couldn’t control their sexual urges. Those kinds of things applied to the customs of those days. Every worshipper has to decide if and when they want those particular passages to apply to them and their lives.

A lot of people point to the Bible for reasons why gay people should not be in the church, or accepted in any way.

Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things -– he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

I draw the line, maybe arbitrarily, in requiring by law that churches must marry people. I’m a Baptist, and I believe that each congregation is autonomous and can govern its own affairs. So if a local Baptist church wants to accept gay members on an equal basis, which my church does by the way, then that is fine. If a church decides not to, then government laws shouldn’t require them to.

Should we approach the Bible literally, or metaphorically?

When we go to the Bible we should keep in mind that the basic principles of the Bible are taught by God, but written down by human beings deprived of modern day knowledge. So there is some fallibility in the writings of the Bible. . . . The example that I set in my private life is to emulate what Christ did as he faced people who were despised like the lepers or the Samaritans. He reached out to them, he reached out to poor people, he reached out to people that were not Jews and treated them equally. The more despised and the more in need they were, the more he emphasized that we should go to and share with them our talent our ability, our wealth, our influence.

What a difference from the message of condemnation, hate, division and intolerance preached daily by those such as Benedict XVI, Tony Perkins, Albert Mohler, Matt Staver, Pat Robertson, etc. I have no issue with Christians like Carter who don't exalt themselves while seeking to condemn and tear down others.

The Role of Religion in Gay Teen Suicides

Click image to enlarge.

Religion plays a huge role in keeping homophobia alive and in disposing gay teens toward ending their lives as an escape from bullying - and from the psychological damage many have experienced growing up in so-called religious households. Homophobia, anti-gay discrimination and gay bashing remain alive and well in society because conservative Christians (including conservative Catholics and the Church hierarchy) in particular target anything that discourages bigotry and cruelty to gays as "promoting homosexuality." It's this constant disingenuous, anti-gay drum beat of "hate the sin, love the sinner" that makes anti-gay bully morally acceptable for far too many Americans. The other side of the coin is the damage done to LGBT youth who grow up in religious homes and discover to their horror that they are, through no choice of their own, considered an abomination. Worse yet, only death ends one's existence as something they've been taught to view as evil and sinful. A piece in the Washington Post via Faith in America looks at this vicious cycle. Here are some highlights:

There is an unspoken narrative surrounding the life and suicide of Tyler Clementi and other similar stories. It must no longer be excluded from the national dialogue on these tragic suicides. What role does a child’s religious upbringing play in their decision to kill themselves? It’s a difficult and delicate subject but it can be no more.

While of course I care about the feelings of well-meaning parents in their time of horrific sorrow, I’ve come to see it more important to care about the feelings of vulnerable teens who fall prey to emotional and spiritual bullying from the pulpit and consequently passed on to them by their parents either intentionally or unintentionally.

There are many more Tyler Clementi tragedies waiting to unfold if we continue to close our minds to the harm caused by religious teaching’s bias and intimidation toward gay. lesbian bisexual and transgender individuals, especially youth and families.

The story of Tyler Clementi’s death has been one of the most publicized teen suicides in recent memory. Unfortunately, a review of media interviews and print news articles over the last 18 months produces only a few hints to the role religious teaching may have played in Clementi’s emotional and psychological distress.

During the previous four years, Faith in America has been sounding the alarm on the immense harm that is being caused to LGBT youth and their families when church teaching is used to place a religious and moral stamp of disapproval on their very being. We also have observed a reluctance to address the root cause of so much of the hostility, prejudice and discrimination.

Christian denominations can look to other sad histories such as church teaching role in supporting slavery, opposition to equality for women, promoting segregation and bans on interracial marriage. Religion institutions have apologized for those moral failures.

So many kids fear they will be separated from their parents’ love if they divulge a same-sex sexual orientation because they know what their parents have been taught in church. Worse, consider the emotional and spiritual trauma of being made to feel your sexual orientation also will separate you from God – knowing as a young person what your relationship with God means to your parents. I’ve seen with my on eyes how devastating this can be to a young teen.

Of course the social stigma and hostility that is promoted toward gay and lesbian individuals is not confined to Southern Baptist churches and other evangelical churches. While their numbers are decreasing, there sadly are Methodist, Presbyterian and Lutheran ministers who continue to teach that that homosexuality in and of itself places the gay or lesbian person beyond God’s love.

Grace Church of Ridgewood, New Jersey, is the church that Tyler Clementi attended with his family. It was not an affirming and welcoming place for a young person processing a same-sex sexual orientation, according to some pastors in that community. The church is a member of the Willow Creek Association, a group of churches headed by Bill Hybels, who as recently as last year said that God designed sexual intimacy to be between a man and a woman in marriage and anything outside of that is sexual impurity in God’s eyes. The gay youth hears in those words that they are dirty, unclean and something for which they should be ashamed.

Olson-Smith wrote “In the congregation Tyler grew up in and his parents still belong to, there was no question. To be gay was to be cut off from God.” . . . . In Christian circles around the country, a “hate the sin, love the sinner” perspective is often promulgated as a ‘Christian’ approach to homosexuality.

After five years of speaking with LGBT youth and their parents across this country, I believe that it was this perspective that likely caused Tyler’s mother to react in a way that her son perceived to be “totally rejecting” him – as he penned in a text message – when he came out to her before going off to college. There can be no doubt that Mrs. Clementi loved her son unconditionally. But Tyler didn’t hear the unconditional part and I suspect that is because he knew what his mother had been taught by the church.

The evidence against religious teaching’s bias and intimidation toward gay people and the role such religion-based bias and intimidation plays in the bullying, the stigma, the prejudice and the discrimination is overwhelming and conclusive.

Immunity can no longer be given to misguided church teaching’s bias and intimidation toward gay and lesbian youth and families. If we do, there will be more stories about a precious life being senselessly ended and more devastation brought upon their parents and families.

Religion is too often a great evil that perpetuates daily horrors on LGBT individuals around the globe. Needless deaths, needless misery, and psychological child abuse are religion's hallmarks. Just so the self-congratulatory pious set can feel better about themselves. It's nothing short of criminal and the special deference given to harm inducing religious beliefs needs to end.

Georgia "University" Seeks to Weed Out Gays

When a supposed institution of higher education seeks to impose loyalty oaths and similar batshitery on faculty and students, one would hope that accreditation authorities would take a serious look at withdrawing the institution's accreditation since obviously quality education and the pursuit of knowledge and truth have been thrown out the window. A case in point is Shorter University, a Southern Baptist-affiliated college (what a surprise - NOT!) in Rome, Georgia, that is beginning to require faculty and staff to sign a "personal lifestyle statement" that bans homosexuality and other condemned sexual activities. I'm surprised the nutters haven't banned all sex not utilizing only the so-called missionary position. It would be the logical extension of the batshitery. Needless to say, gay faculty and staff are terrified of the coming witch hunt - not that I can fathom why anyone gay would want to work at a Baptist affiliated institution. Employers seeking the best and the brightest recruits ought to delete Shorter grads from the list of interviewees. Religion Dispatches looks at this institutionalized bigotry and the disservice the leadership is doing to its students; Here are highlights:

It's not shocking that a Southern Baptist school would include such a statement — and as a private institution, it is within its legal rights to do so. Employees who happen to be gay and Christian, however, are now in fear for their jobs. One employee told the GA Voice that they now fear witch hunts and vendettas because of the new statement.

Certainly, those who don't like it can find new jobs and Shorter will have the employee base it wants — good, obedient, homogenized Christians who gladly sign a list of beliefs and adhere to the letter of the law.

This is the real problem, however. Any organization, be it the military, a school, a church, or even the local bridge club, that seeks to purify itself from any dissent or diversity automatically dooms itself. Organizations that force its members to conform — even if they do it gladly and eagerly — cuts itself off from the source of any future growth. What causes growth among groups is most often disagreements, differing points of view, or different understandings of the world around them. To automatically shield itself from the necessary messiness and conflicts of community, Shorter is doing itself — and its students — a disservice.

While some employees may find the statement comforting, human beings cannot live too long in the shell of unbending religiosity without suffocating. What seems to die off first is any tolerance for difference, and any compassion one might have for others outside their tight circle. It's a human trait to want to be among the like-minded — but it is in the challenges and crises of community that real human freedom is found.

As German theologian Eugen Drewermann observed: "Truth can't be fixed in a certain formula. We can never possess a doctrine that is valid once and for all, or have a statement for which we give up everything and go through the world threatening all those who don't recite it in the proper way. Some ways of becoming human can be crushed by fear, but we must dare to try, no matter what it costs."

Shorter's threat to its employees and faculty over this statement is born of fear. If they allow themselves to be crushed by that fear, what it really costs them is their humanity.

Retired Bishop: Sex With Boys Doesn't Count as Sex

Having been raised Roman Catholic, I am all too aware of the Catholic Church's bizarre hang ups on all matters sexual and the manner in which - despite outward worship of the Virgin Mary - women are viewed by the all male hierarchy as evil temptresses just waiting to drag males to perdition. It's a mind set that is beyond f*cked up. It took me years of therapy to get over the psychological abuse I received at the hands of the Church. And sadly, in many areas the Church is continuing to inflict severe psycho-sexual damage on children and youth even as predatory priests feel free to sexually abuse boys. Why do they have this sick mindset that the rape of boys and teens is okay? Because, according to a now retired Australian Bishop, to many priests sex with boys doesn't count as sexual sin because it's not with women - you know, those agents of the Devil. Daily India has coverage on this beyond sick situation. Here are highlights:
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A retired Catholic bishop in Australia has claimed that some priests do not view the molestation of boys as a breach of their celibacy vows.
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Geoffrey Robinson, the former auxiliary bishop of Sydney, blames the absence of women from church life as a catalyst for the sexual abuse crisis enveloping the faith. According to the Australian Women's Weekly, Robinson said boys suffered more than girls at the hands of paedophile priests partly because they were more available to them, with nuns tending to play a greater role in the religious education of young girls.
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There was also a view among some offenders with whom he had worked that a priest's celibacy vows weren't broken if a boy was involved. "We've met it often enough to see it as a factor. That's what the vow of celibacy refers to, being married. If it's not an adult woman, then somehow they're not breaking their vow," Adelaide Now quoted him as telling the magazine.
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Three years ago, Robinson broke 50 years of silence about his own abuse at the hands of a stranger, who he said wasn't a family member or a priest. It goes some way to explain his work with abuse victims and his commitment to change within the church.
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He says getting women more involved in church life is a crucial step forward. "If the feminine had been given greater importance and a much larger voice, the church would not have seen anything like the same level of abuse and would most certainly have responded far better," he said.
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He believes the issue will not be properly dealt with until the church holds a council, or a conference of all the bishops in the church, to revise the centuries-old doctrine on celibacy, women and sexuality.
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I've now come to believe that raising children as conservative Catholics is indeed a form of child abuse. Many of us did not realize it in the past, but with all that has come out - and continues to come out - about the damage the Church's sick obsession works on one's psyche, it's time to call such an upbringing for what it is. The same likely applies to raising children as strict Mormons or Southern Baptists where being human and a sexual being is seemingly considered among the worse sins.

Mohler Still Foaming at the Mouth Over Newsweek

Baptist homo-hater and professional bigot, Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, still has his panties in a knot over the Newsweek article I discussed in a prior post which made a biblical case for gay marriage. Of course, one of Mohler's arguments against the Newsweek approach is that it would mean that Christians have basically been wrong for the better part of 20 centuries in understanding the Scripture. As if Christians have much of a record for being right over the centuries. And it is folks like Mohler who still do not accept the theory of evolution.

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Moreover, these are the same folks who for centuries said the Bible justified slavery, argued that the earth was flat, held that the Sun and universe revolved around the earth, etc. Yet Mohler would nonetheless have us believe that this time the Christianists' interpretation of the Bible is absolutely correct. Let's face it, the Catholic Church and other reactionary Christian elements including today's Southern Baptist Convention - which came into existence when the Baptist Church split over slavery so that Baptists in the South could own slaves - have largely never been right and it has taken science and the passage of centuries for them to concede they were wrong on a host of issue. Mohler suffers from insufferable hubris and acts as if he thinks HE is God most of the time. As with most rabid anti-gay wingnuts, one has to wonder why Mohler is so fixated on gay sex. Here are some samples of Mohler's whining:

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Newsweek’s recent cover story which seeks to make a “biblical case for gay marriage” runs directly counter to 2,000 years of Christian history that interprets Scripture as rejecting same-sex relations, R. Albert Mohler Jr. said Monday on National Public Radio’s program “Talk of the Nation.” Mohler, who serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, appeared on the show with Lisa Miller, senior faith reporter for Newsweek, who wrote the article in which she argues that the Bible is mostly silent about same-sex marriage and, therefore, does not condemn it.

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“Let’s face it, what the sum and substance of this cover story really attempts to do is to say that Christians have basically been wrong for the better part of 20 centuries in understanding the Scripture and that the vast majority of believers in this country are wrong in believing that same-sex marriage is prohibited by scriptural injunction,” Mohler said. “And that’s no understatement.

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“She (Miller) said you either believe…that [the Bible is] more or less a human book marked by history, and we correct it by our contemporary understanding,” Mohler said. “Or you believe as I believe, and as evangelical Christians and the most conservative believers in the Judeo-Christian traditions have always believed, that we have to understand and interpret the Scripture with the goal of obeying it.

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“There is no biblical case for gay marriage,” Mohler said. “The Bible knows what marriage is. And when she (Miller) says the issue is who can get married, you have to turn around and say, ‘You can’t possibly talk about that until you talk about what marriage is.’ And when you look at the Bible, you can’t make a case for marriage being anything other than heterosexual other than by turning [the Bible] on its head, which is what Newsweek tried to do in this cover story.

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As I have said before, Mohler and other gay obsessed self-hating Christianist homophobes like him need to get themselve a good male escort and satisfy their fixation on gay sex once and for all and then join the ranks of fraudulent preachers with Ted Haggard.

Gay-Sex Sting Operation Nabs Baptist Pastor

Another "godly" Baptist pastor was caught in gay sex sting (http://www.ethicsdaily.com/article_detail.cfm?AID=9523) while another is facing charges of soliciting sex from a 14 year old boy. Funny how these guys always preach a constantly anti-gay story line and then go out looking for gay sex. Yet more hypocrites bite the dust. Why is it that those who condemn gays and gay sex are the ones who secretly want it the most?

A Southern Baptist pastor was among 40 men arrested on indecency charges in a two-week investigation of city parks in Johnson City, Tennesse. Robert E. Riley, 55, stepped down as pastor of Rogersville First Baptist Church in Rogersville, Tenn. [pictured at left], after being charged with disorderly conduct and indecent exposure, the Rogersville Review reported Wednesday. Johnson City police said after receiving several complaints, officers went undercover to investigate "inappropriate or anti-social illegal behavior" in public parks.

According to a report Tuesday in the Johnson City Press, the sting was just the beginning for authorities who said homosexual activities in city parks have become a "serious problem." The newspaper described one area off the beaten path, a growth of underbrush frequented so much by men to have sex that it earned a word-of-mouth nickname of the "Man Cave." Police said they would strike up conversations with men approaching the trail to the spot--conversations that would quickly turn sexual and at times led to proposals for sex.

The Rogersville paper on Wednesday said Riley's arrest report stated that the minister exposed himself to an undercover officer on the afternoon of Sept. 26 and asked the officer to engage in sexual conduct. The report said Riley was cited without incident and "warned not to be back in any Johnson City park."

Riley isn't the only out-of-work Tennessee Baptist preacher facing legal problems. The Jackson Sun reported earlier this week that Mark Woodson Mangrum, former pastor of First Baptist Church in Parsons, Tenn., is scheduled to appear in court Friday to change his plea to guilty in connection with a federal charge that accuses him of using a computer to entice a 14-year-old boy into having sex.

Mangrum's attorney at first said his defendant didn't do anything wrong and was looking forward to defending himself in court. But on Monday attorney Mark Donahoe told the Jackson Sun that Mangrum had settled on a plea agreement, but he couldn't discuss details. Mangrum reportedly worked at First Baptist Church in Parsons six years before resigning in January. In February Donahoe said Mangrum stepped down because, "he didn't want anyone in the church to be uncomfortable or for this situation to affect the church in any way until the final matter can be resolved."